Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

My family loves baked goodies for breakfast. Since they are in the area visiting I couldn’t resist making them something. I’ve never made a coffee cake before and let me tell you that I’m in love with this recipe! This was my first shot at this glorious morning goody and I wouldn’t change a single thing, which is rare since part of why I love cooking is for the fun of tweaking recipes. Now I’m excited to share this with you, unabridged. 🙂

This cake is so moist and buttery. The cinnamon and sugar filling is sweet, but not too sweet, which is the perfect amount for in the morning. The walnuts add a wonderful crunchy texture to every bite. If you don’t like walnuts then pecans are a great alternative.

Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake Recipe
(About 18 servings)

Ingredients:

For streusel:

1/3 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

3/4 cup walnuts, chopped

For the cake:

1 cup butter, equivalent to 2 sticks

2 cups white sugar

2 eggs

1 cup low fat sour cream

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/8 teaspoon salt

Directions:

For the streusel:

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar, melted butter, and cinnamon. Set this aside.

For the cake:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan and set it aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar.

Beat in the eggs, one at a time.

Stir in the sour cream and vanilla extract. Set the wet ingredients aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt.

Gradually stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until combined. Set it aside.

Spread half ofthe cake batter evenly into the greased baking pan.

Sprinkle half of the streusel on the cake batter.

Sprinkle all of the chopped walnuts over the streusel.

Spread second half of the cake batter over the streusel and walnut filling.

Top with the remaining half of the streusel.

Bake in the preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes or until a tester inserted comes out clean.

Let the cake rest at least 5 minutes before cutting into it.

Store in an air tight container on the counter or cover with tin foil and place in a freezer friendly zip lock bag in the freezer.

I love that this coffee cake is so simple to make but there are some important things I wanted to point out though…

I wanted to take a moment to review what “creaming” means. Creaming means that you mix the room temperature butter and sugar together until you have a smooth and fluffy consistency. Sometimes this takes a few minutes with the hand mixer depending on how warm your butter is. I have a running list of this and other definitions on my Baking 101 page but since this is my first cake recipe (and cakes are notorious for “creaming” steps) I thought I’d give this process a shout out.

I stand by my position that this coffee cake was easy to make. However, I will say that it was a little time consuming. You are effectively making a delicious lasagna cake. It took me some time to evenly spread out each cake batter layer. I think I just need to learn to have more patience. 😉 It looks like they are very thin layers but don’t worry because they will fluff up as they bake.

Also, I took the time to weigh the cake batter and streusel to make sure that I had the half portions required for layering the coffee cake. However, I am a bit of a perfectionist. If you are not like me and have a great eye then this step will take very little time.

My kitchen smelled amazing when I was baking this coffee cake. I kept looking at the time clock because I couldn’t wait to pull it out of the oven to try it. Have I mentioned that patience is not one of my strengths? 😉

I love using low fat sour cream in breads, cakes, and muffins because it really makes it so moist, like with my Classic Banana Bread. Just look at that beauty! Mmm buttery and moist cake. 🙂 I’m actually pretty sure that I was “mmm-ing” out loud when I ate this.

This picture is fantastic for showing all the tasty layers.

Coffee cakes remind me of my dad because they are one of his favorite breakfast treats. He’s the best dad in the world. This one is for you, Papa! Now I’m just like my dad. Give me a cinnamon streusel coffee cake with a cup of coffee and I’m a happy woman. 🙂

Going, going, an almost gone! I kept taking bites of it while I was taking pictures of it. I usually have more discipline to wait until I’m done with the shoot. 😉

I have to say THIS is my fav breakfast goodie. I grew up with coffee cake…it was always a treat! So I’m going to pin this into 2 of my boards…breakfast and cake! (Can’t wait to try it with the almonds!)